Example of Rancher Frustration of Proving Wolf Kills

Kerry Tienhaara, an Oregon Rancher and one of the founders of the Oregon Wolf Education, shares an example of the difficulty of confirming a wolf kill. Earlier this summer the alpha male of the Imnaha pack traveled across their property to their neighbors. Within a 10 minute time frame of the first sighting the wolf had run a ram through a high-tension, seven-strand smooth-wire fence. After running the ram through the fence, the wolf trotted off. The neighbor called both the sheriff and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and because the ram seemed fine, nothing was reported at that time.??Tienhaara shares however that several weeks later, the neighbor called the vet as the ram was down and later died.??Tienhaara: “That morning right after the ram ran through the fence, you couldn’t see that he had been badly, badly bruised from going through that smooth wire fence -- there was no markings to see. Sheep have wool so you couldn’t see that. So anyway all those areas where he hit that fence when he squeezed through the wires was so badly bruised that it was necrotic skin and the wool was just falling off and maggots had gotten in there. He was just terribly infected all the way through.”??When the ODFW examined the carcass, the decision was that the ram was killed from from infection. And although Tienhaara says the ODFW says that they will reopen the case, nothing as happen as of the end of August.